People Sharing Stories of Extraordinary Experiences Enable a Greater Understanding of Consciousness

What is Dancing with the Trickster — the Consciousness Revolution? Dancing with the Trickster — the Consciousness Revolution is a multi-platform project that includes an interactive website powered by social media, a supporting book, and a documentary film and web series.

A goal of our project is to facilitate the building of a healing community in which men and women who’ve had extraordinary experiences can share their stories with one another, and with our team of experts, leading experts in the field, who are trying to help them — and all of us — to better understand and learn from these experiences.

(4) subjective psychokinesis experiences, (5) magnetism or healing experiences, (6) near-death experiences, (7) mediumistic experiences, (8) reincarnation, (9) mystical experiences, and (10) abductions. Within these categories more than 150 types and sub-types have been identified. For example, psi phenomena, commonly known as ‘psychic abilities’, includes telepathy (the ability to obtain information from another person), clairvoyance (the ability to obtain information from another person at a distance), and precognition (the ability to obtain information from the future).

Throughout history, people have had these experiences, regardless of their age, gender, religion, culture, or socio-economic class—globally.

Many ordinary people have extraordinary experiences. Some people report having them and simply consider them part of who they are. Many others, however, are motivated to change their behavior. A significant number become frightened and disturbed by these experiences and fear that they are losing their minds.

For hundreds of years, religious institutions and medical ideas have led to too large a number of people who have had these experiences being afraid to discuss them with their families, religious leaders, even medical professionals for fear that they would be seen as “crazy.”

Despite the scientific evidence that supports the validity of anomalous experiences, many mainstream psychologists and psychiatrists are, unfortunately, among the highly skeptical, so when confused or even terrified experiencers turn to them for help, they are often poorly received. Clinicians, who are both unreceptive and ill-equipped to help (as many are, due to a lack of knowledge on the topic), may erroneously diagnose them as mentally ill.

While it may be true that some people who report having anomalous experiences may be mentally ill, many aren’t. For example, during a routine medical examination, a young Native American woman told a Western physician that she was hearing voices: plants and animals were communicating with her. The doctor deemed her to be mentally ill, medicated her, and locked her up in a psych ward. Fortunately for her, the spirits instructed her of what to do to get out. She accepted their guidance and was released. If she were to tell the people among her tribe of plants and animals communicating with her, it would not be problematic: human, plant, and animal spirit communication is totally accepted within her culture. In fact, depending on her account of the experience, she might even be revered as a shaman among her tribe. The Western doctor providing treatment was totally unaware of Native American culture and spiritual practice.

Knowledge Gained From Human Experience

Over millennia, philosophers and scientists around the world have studied human consciousness. Currently, there is an ever-growing interest in studying and understanding consciousness, and many would agree that we’re living in a time of global strife with a need for global consciousness. Much has been learned—even proven—on the nature of consciousness and the occurrence of anomalous experiences. Even so, there is a great degree of skepticism and disagreement. What exactly is consciousness? Where does it come from? What do anomalous experiences actually reveal about the nature of consciousness? A rousing debate persists.

“When the evidence for an anomaly becomes overwhelming, and the anomaly cannot be easily accommodated by the existing scientific worldview, this is a very important sign that either our assumptions about reality are wrong or our assumptions about how we come to understand things are wrong.”
― Dean Radin, PhD“The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena”

Effective clinical psychology practices demonstrate that people benefit by sharing stories of their experiences with others. Among our intentions is to build a web-based community for people to share and dialogue about their own anomalous experiences. The web community gives its members: the ability to submit their experiences and comment on others’ experiences; a forum for interaction between experiencers; and a forum for interaction between clinicians and experiencers.

In the “Dancing with the Trickster: the Consciousness Revolution” media projects, we will explore and discuss how the study of anomalous experience is fundamental to understanding human consciousness. Our approach is phenomenological, that is, we begin by obtaining information and knowledge that arises from the experiencer. By studying human experience, we gain a greater understanding of human consciousness.

Value and Benefits

In all of our projects, our team of expertswill weigh-in with information, insights, and explanations on the nature of the experiences, what can be learned from them, and when and where to seek professional help. In addition, they’ll provide guidance for mental health care professionals, enabling them to both better understand and care for people who turn to them after having anomalous experiences.

Included in our team of experts are: Stanley Krippner, PhD, a highly esteemed parapsychologist, psychology professor, published author, and former president of two divisions of the American Psychology Association; Dean Radin, PhD, best-selling author, chief scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and president of the Parapsychological Association; David Lukoff, PhD, licensed psychologist and professor of psychology, co-author of the DSM-4 and DSM-5 section on religious and spiritual problems; and many more luminaries in parapsychology and related fields.

The “Dancing with the Trickster — the Consciousness Revolution” projects are very timely, bringing tremendous value to the individuals who have anomalous experiences, the mental health practitioners who aim to help them, and the researchers of both anomalous experiences and consciousness. Among the value and benefits are:

Experiencers can eliminate feelings of isolation and fear by interacting with others who share their experiences.

Our experts will share their own anomalous experiences, giving experiencers access to an otherwise unavailable depth of understanding.

Experiencers will better understand themselves and their experiences, which for some can create positive, personal transformative change.

For clinicians, observing experiencers will lead to better evaluation and treatment regimes, and raise awareness of the ideal treatment for people who have anomalous experiences.

People whose anomalous experiences result from trauma gain the opportunity to heal, and live a healthy balanced life.

By examining the data revealed through human experience, leading-edge consciousness experimenters, researchers, educators, and the scientific community will gain significant insights and advancements on the nature of consciousness.

We will raise the awareness of the general public on the topics of anomalous experiences and consciousness.

Our findings will serve to support and validate the many existing researchers and organizations currently seeking a greater understanding of consciousness.

Support Our Efforts!

Join us in the exploration of human experience and human consciousness as experiencers share their stories of anomalous experiences, and physicians, philosophers, psychologists, physicists, and more provide insights and information on the nature of consciousness and even the nature of reality itself.

We are currently seeking funding for the “Dancing with the Trickster — the Consciousness Revolution” multi-media projects. To support the projects, please click on the link below. For further information, please Email us at:info@dancingwiththetrickster.com

Experience Community

Discover a growing community of people who are reaching out to the world, sharing their own stories of extraordinary experiences.